535 quotes
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd.
Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady (1717)
A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit
With the same spirit that its author writ:
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind.
An Essay on Criticism (1709)
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave.
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away;
* * * * * *
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
The Rape of the Lock (1712)
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've played, and loved, and ate, and drank your fill.
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage.
And what is Fame? the Meanest have their Day,
The Greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.
The gracious Dew of Pulpit Eloquence,
And all the well-whip'd Cream of Courtly Sense.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume Thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge Thy foe.
The Universal Prayer (1738)
He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell:
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you;
'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.
Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.
Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art
By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part,
Bold in the practice of mistaken rules,
Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
An Essay on Criticism (1709)
Well, if our author in the wife offends
He has a husband that will make amends;
He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,
And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
Epilogue to Rowe's Jane Shore (1714)
A prudent Chief not always must display
His Pow'rs in equal Ranks, and fair Array,
But with th' Occasion and the Place comply,
Conceal his Force, nay seem sometimes to Fly.
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death;
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in air.
Windsor Forest (1713)
Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!
The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)
* * * th' approach of night
The skies yet blushing with departing light,
When falling dews with spangles deck'd. the glade,
And the low sun had lengthen'd evry shade.
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suff'ring eye inverted nature sees,
Trees cut in statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summer-house that knows no shade.